Tuesday, 25 April 2017

8th Edition thoughts and grudge

The world of Warhammer 40 000 is going nuts since the weekend. New Edition was announced and everything will be different.
I'm not convinced yet, which is not the fault of the new rules we don't know yet but mostly because of GW's bad communication skills.

Game Length:

It's said to be a much faster game. 90 Minutes for a 1500 Points match would be great. All your models you love in so little time. I guess this will be achieved by the new AoS-like statlines. I don't know how much time we "loose" in every game with comparing stats as casual players. "What's you WS? Okay, then I hit you on four or five? I've to look it up... What's the strength of my weapon and your armor?" That takes time. And if you play AdMech you've a gazillion of different weapons to handle. Hits on..., Wounds on..., Save.... Done. Great!

Game Styles

Fun Match, not so Fun Match and Classic "Matched" games with points for every knob on your vest.

Last one is like today but just because there are equal points doesn't mean it's a "matched" game. Had this fun with an AoS-Game once: Khorne vs. Flesheaters. Melee vs. Magic. Same points on both sides. No Chance for Khorne. So dream on for a balanced game...

Templates are gone

I still don't get it. Who's arguing over templates? Guess these are those power gamers who like to discuss about almost every aspect of the game. (Okay, at least one I know who discussed about his Droppod being on or of the table for minutes because he rolled crap). You won't get rid of those guys. They'll find a new reason to argue. From the games I played I've never experienced such a thing. Maybe because my general rule is: It's a game. In doubt be nice. It'll equal out in some ways. I've never lost because there was a model more or less under a template.

For me this even reduces the tactical depth of the game because it seems like you can put all your models in one spot and not spread them out because of a flamer or barrage.

As a upcoming DKoK-player I'm curious how they'll handle barrage in the future. I was so looking forward what my artillery could do.Update: Totally forgot about the ForgeWorld Ordinatus Ulator and his "Flip the Template all over the table and hit anything in the way"-Weapon... As AdMech-Player im really curious how they will manage this without a template.

Everything can kill everything

No more armor for vehicles. Instead they get hitpoints. "Everything can kill everything". In my mind this is like hurting a car by throwing cotton balls at it. What was wrong with the old system? You need at least a weapon with a certain strength to do damage. This sounds like I can poke a Landraider to death with pointy sticks if I've enough of them. (And I play Tyranids... I've many many many pointy sticks).

Factions

Another reference to AoS. There are factions now. In AoS everybody in a faction can ally with any other. So Eldar, Orks and Tyranids are in the Xenos faction... My Nids don't ally with anybody. Period. Everything is food. You want more narrative gaming and then something like that seems to be possible?

Codices

The longer I think about it, the more I've the feeling that this caused so much grudge because of bad communication. Communication is, although there's this community-branded, bad configured, Wordpress-Blog, not the thing of Games Workshop.

They invalidated all current codices and supplements. Even the new ones like Imperial Agents, Genestealers and Gathering Storm. Stats inside don't fit the new rules. On the other hand they say that all the rest will stay valid. All the fluff and stories.

Well, bad communication. By saying "invalidating things" I, as a customer, feel like you've just burned a board of my shelf. You got my money and now you've burned what I got for that. Great job.

How about a "nicer" approach like "We're providing free stats-updates for all the units in the current codices" when you're planning on doing so anyway. That way nicer and sounds like an errata. My books still great and I get free stuff. Yay! But no, invalidate is the thing. Trust us we're GW. Codices are gone. Or, according to the FAQ round yesterday, not so gone but there will be new Codices later.

Guess what: I don't trust you. It's nice to get a voucher if you bought a book within the last eight weeks but no.

Release Date

Again sucking at communication. You can't drop a bomb like that and then not name a date except "Soon" or "This year". This year has eight more month to give. I put everything on hold more or less. Except for my DKoK where I don't have to choose between weapons.

Stats

When I see the new examples for stats I guess this will be very Space Marine-heavy. Having a primarch Guilliman with more movement, more wounds, more everything than a Dreadnaught is frightening. If a Dread gets 8 wounds, a Primarch 9... what does a Titan get? Or some of the Superheavy tanks?

To sum up things...

I'm still shocked how bad a company can communicate in 2017. And even if GW says they are closer to the community now, they are capable of messing with the "Trust us" thing on regular base.

I'm looking forward for some improvements on the game mechanics when it comes to casual players and speed. Time will tell how good or bad it'll work. I hope that the phonebook of special rules will be reduced to a normal level. I hate speacial rules in the codices that's a special rule of a special rule in the core rules refering to another special rule. Slim that down.

But finally there will be no way around it. We'll see what will be within the free core rules and what you have to pay for. It's nice that there will be an App like the AoS-App, but there you also had to pay for extra content. I don't buy a book and pay for the same content again. If you're planning on doing so put a code in your books so everybody who bought the book can unlock the content he already paid for in the app.

My information is something between "Coming Soon" and "We'll be playing it this year" from the livestream. FAQ still says "Really soon" and "We’ll let you know when we have more news on an exact release date. Stay posted."

The eight weeks you mentioned (I guess from the Codex-Refund-Article) mean you can get refund for your codices if you bought them back in the last eight weeks. There's no "in eight weeks". So still no release date.

And yes, I would like to get a more positive message from a company I gave a lot of money. If most parts of the codices are still in line (Fluff, Painting) just give me an update of the stats if they'll be provided "free" anyway.